


The Shades of Bak-Szaltul

by SirSpeedyFingers



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Different setting, Gen, Loose Following, different characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6627628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirSpeedyFingers/pseuds/SirSpeedyFingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a time when all men must fall. All great empires, marvelous cities, and majestic constructions will fail. It is inevitable. They watch over us, though, and see to it that we do not fail, and to this, we are thankful, and reward them with glorious architecture and our own sanity.<br/>THIS STORY IS NOT BEING UPDATED!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shades of Bak-Szaltul

**Author's Note:**

> This only loosely follows the story of the Stormlight Archive. It is basically completely separate, only spawned by the ideas of Brandon Sanderson. I hope it works out to your pleasures.

# The Infinite Peace

Do not mistake a steady hand on a bow for some master of war, one who knows what it is like to feel the blood of fallen enemies and the torturing of innocent minds. War corrupts, it breaks, and it annihilates the humanity within oneself. It does all it can to rip our minds apart, to murder our thoughts and inhibitions like we were some tool to kill our own species off.

That is, of course, until they came. They who protected us, kept us clean, warded us from our own minds. They, the Shades of Bak-Szaltul, keep our company in times of wretched places and devilish creatures, known to us by the whispers in our heads. It keeps us awake at night, the terrible sounds of the blackened beasts, clawing at us and skinning us in my dreams. Yet they soothe us, the voices of the Shades, and we are once more at peace.

Once, every month, they demand a new warrior come forth from us. A strong servant, to aide them in their task of unheard domination. Why it is they require on so strong from among us, we do not know. Those who go to serve them, typically do not come back to us.

We do not care. They can go fight to save us. To keep us safe from whatever it is attempting to remove us from our mortality. Send them unto the battle that stoppers the beasts that retain the weapons used to slaughter us all. Those who bear the Shades’ Will have the power to touch the unseen beasts, and they have the skill to see these invisible monstrosities with their naked eyes. One could tell them apart from the bourgeois by their red, evil eyes, their dark hoods, and their massive black swords. Horrible, they appear, truly.

We do not oft commune with these sub-human creatures. They draw fear from us, and use it for their weaponry. It consumes our life-energies, draining us of what we once were and could have been. We do not enjoy their presence.

The Shades of Bak-Szaltul, however, we adore beyond all comparison. What they do for us, what they made us into, it makes us revel in joy. It brought us peace for an eternity, and so we love them. They take these already damned human souls, wandering through abyssal time fragments, and turn them to the Shades.

They bring us peace, and we give them these men in return for their love. They protect us, care for us, save us… And we would not live on without them. We could not possibly survive without them, without our shield, our hope, our light. They tell us of heaven, and how we will one day become one with them. We wait out, carry on with our lives, serving them until they feel it necessary to let us become them. We wait. We watch. We serve.

It does not end.


End file.
